


Ruining Halloween

by maximum_overboner



Series: Tailspin [3]
Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Bonus Chapter, Dark Comedy, Gen, Sickfic, a little more lighthearted than my usual fare, a smaller farce without end, black hat is literally dying, sugary sweet in parts, tie-in fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner
Summary: Halloween! A time of costumes, sweets, parties and ritualistic demon summoning. Black Hat, dying and depressed, is summoned by an unknown source and ventures out into the night to wreak dark havoc.Ideally.





	Ruining Halloween

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a bonus chapter for malevolent contributions (the first fic in the series), so it may not make sense without it! hope you enjoy!

There was a change in the air. Dementia said it was the lead paint finally getting to them but Flug knew it was something different.

It started in early October. The pervading humidity of summer melted away in the crisp winds. The nights crept in, long and unpleasant. Black Hat was coming into his element, better suited to slinking in the murk of winter; dark, dreary, cold and resplendent.

Flug sipped his coffee and thumbed through an aviation magazine, reclining on the double bed. Dementia sat cross-legged upon 5.0.5’s back, noodling on her guitar. 5.0.5 was occupied with a colouring book and some crayons Flug browbeat Dementia into shoplifting, happily resting his cheeks on his paws.

Black Hat stood, as he often did, by the window.

Flug assumed that Black Hat ‘coming into his element’ would be a good thing but it saddled Black Hat with bursts of energy that went unspent. All he could do was agonize with the youthful zeal of a man one-thousandth his age. In the mornings he would leap from the bed with a smile on his face, wholeheartedly throw himself into the day’s evil, be it stealing from a charity or beating an unassuming tour group to death with his cane, slump into bed, drink whatever alcohol they had, hog the duvet and sleep wretchedly. Flug took care to ask Black Hat how he was feeling and to scrape together extra portions of meat at mealtimes, not that his kindness was ever repaid with anything more than a wordless grunt of acknowledgement. He just hoped it would temper the strange and manic edge that came with Black Hat’s moods.

“Ahh, Halloween,” Black Hat sighed, throwing open the windows and taking in a great lungful of air. He threw his arms out as if inviting the world to join him. “Breathe in the crisp, heady scent of Autumn flora! Hear the laughter of revellers on the wind! Feel the twist of your spirit in your chest as it seeps down to your bones! _Writhe as the veil between impermanent flesh and ineradicable soul melts to nothing, the air a slurry of supranormal power and wicked intent!”_

“I like candy,” Dementia said, liking candy.

Black Hat slumped, the moment gone. He pinched his nose. “Thank you, Dementia. Thanks. I was almost my old self for a second and we can’t bloody have that, can we? Thanks. Really grateful, ta, thanks.”

“No problem,” she nodded.

“Ugh. I hear children playing. Drunks. Drunk children, potentially. People are having fun.”

“Yeah,” Flug responded absently, wistful for a time he could dress in goofy outfits. He adjusted his paper bag.

“People are having fun and I loathe it,” Black Hat spat. “Look at them, dressing in silly costumes and frolicking. They’ve completely missed the spirit of the occasion.”

“And that is?”

“Appeasing me! Propitiation! It’s Oiche Shamhna, it’s my time, mine, me, I will set the crops ablaze and I will scream at the Irish! I should be out tormenting these people, these feckless rubes, they aren’t giving me a second thought! I should make the drooling masses rue the day they were born! Bah,” he sighed, throwing his arm out, ”it’s just not to be this year. My wretched little flesh prison couldn’t handle it. Luckily, I have a rich, full day ahead of me.”

Black Hat looked over his shoulder, pleased with himself. “I’m going to slither under the duvet, lie face down and think about how miserable I am. Do not disturb me as I do this.”

“I don’t think that will make you feel better,” Flug said.

“I don’t care about feeling better, I want to sulk. I’ve got the morbs.”

“I think we have a cream for that.”

“Stop joking.”

Flug raised a brow. “What joke?”

By the time he got the words out, Black Hat was a pile of misery entombed in blankets and pillows beside him, the duvet tenting around his large hat. Sufficiently comfortable, he engaged in his plans for the evening. “Woe,” he cried out, muffled by the blanket. “Woe is me! A curse! A curse upon you all for leaving me like this, all of you, every last bloody one of you!”

“Even me?” Dementia asked, still strumming.

“Especially you!”

Flug looked at the lump, guessed what part was the shoulder and put his hand on it. “I know you’re upset because you’re more dying than you were last year… But can you keep it down? I’m trying to read.”

 _“Oh,”_ Black Hat wailed, doubling his volume, _“oh, to have a fate as underserved as mine! To be laid low by a common MORON in a PAPER SANDWICH BAG who has the audacity to COMPLAIN despite his youth and perfect health! Powerless on Oidhche Shamhna of all days!”_

Dementia sat on the bed, trapping Black Hat’s calves under her behind and startling him. “I lo-o-ove Halloween,” Dementia gushed. “It’s like Evil Christmas.”

“Hardly,” Black Hat groused. “I don’t want to see an ounce of goodwill in my presence or I’ll be furious. Besides, with the glut of soulless marketing and the twisting of humanity’s natural inclination towards altruism redirected to the pursuit of spending Christmas is already an evil.”

“Neat!”

“I made so much money last year. Get off my legs.”

“Huh? Oh! You’re so frail that I didn’t even notice them. Like little toothpicks. Sorry about that.” She scooted to the side, freeing him. “Do you feel better?”

“No,” he said weakly. “No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m frail.”

Dementia gasped. “Oh, bonbon, no,” she cooed. “No, no, why would you think that?”

Black Hat groaned. He sat up abruptly, the misery in his voice replaced with a thin, disbelieving curiosity. “I feel… Odd.”

Flug put the magazine away, resigned. “Ill?”

“Not an ill sort of odd,” Black Hat breathed, thrilled to his bones. “Just odd. Strange. Almost as if… No, no, it couldn’t possibly be.”

“Be what?”

Black Hat threw the covers back, his face contorted in wonder as he wrestled with a sliver of prestige. “I’m being summoned!”

“... What do you mean, you’re being summoned?”

“A summoning is happening and it’s directed at me. Keep up, idiot, this isn’t hard! My presence is urgently required,” he lilted, delighting in it. “Should I want to appear, I click my fingers and...”

He clicked.

“... There I am.”

“But you’re too ill to do that,” Dementia said bluntly.

“... Correct. But this is strange. Something doesn’t feel… As it should. I don’t have a better way to describe it.”

“Is it hard to summon you?” Flug asked, magical matters falling well outside his understanding.

“Damn right it is! Could you imagine if it was as simple as burning a candle and burying an effigy? I’d be inundated with horny miscreants,” he said, nodding at Dementia. “I made a point of making it as obtuse as possible. I wrote one set of instructions. In Etruscan. And left them under a rock. A damp rock. And left out some bits. One part requires reciting from the Lemegeton as you rub your head and pat your stomach and if you get it wrong you burst. I don’t want the riff-raff slapping the ‘summon evil’ button when they please, the dark intent it requires is staggering. Imagine you on a bad day. Or me on any day. I demand a good reason for a summon. But the odd thing is that I haven’t been called upon personally in years.”

“Wow,” Flug breathed, caught up in the pomp of it all. “Why?”

“Postal service. Far easier. Some people love the occasion, mind, so there were always stragglers. Get the lads, have a few drinks, tear asunder the seams of reality to manifest the dark will of all creatures given cold flesh, raze a town, have a few scones, marvellous time.”

Dementia looked at Black Hat. Tears brimmed her eyes. “How come you never told me how to summon you?”

“What?” Black Hat responded, exasperated. “What are you talking about? You don’t need to, I’m right here. If you need to ask me something you can ask it.”

“I miss you when I go out...”

“Well, I’m about to make your day; I’m going and you can come along.”

Flug baulked. “But what if it’s a trap? Are you out of your mind?”

“I don’t think it is but thanks for taking the opportunity to lecture me on something you only just learned about. Your dedication to being wrong is admirable.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Black Hat.”

“I’m sure that’s the case, Flug, but I’m going. Dementia, care to accept my offer?”

“Oh, hell yes,” she said. “Of course. I’m always down.”

“I know, but I want to rub his nose in it. Don’t be so glum, Flug. I’m sure you’ll have a fabulous time sitting here with the black mould whilst Dementia and I have an outing we’ll cherish forever. Dementia, Demmy, _darling,_ shall we bring him a souvenir? Or is he so boring that a little trinket would thrill him into a massive heart attack?”

“If we’re lucky,” she teased.

“Fine,” Flug mumbled, crossing his arms. “If you’re going anyway then I’ll come. But if it goes wrong I will say ‘I told you so’. And I’ll waggle my finger. And I will be insufferable.”

“I assume so; you do a fantastic job as it is.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

“Wait,” Dementia said, shaking her head, “wait, wait, wait. Wait. Wait. If you can’t click your fingers and just show up at this summoning thing... How will you get there?”

“We have a van,” he said. Dementia winced. Black Hat sniped at her, his ego bruised. “What? What’s so painful?”

“Showing up to a ceremony in a shitty old van, uh…”

“It won’t be shitty because I am in it. I will sense how to get there. Luckily, it’s in this town.”

“Really lucky,” Flug said.

“Isn’t it just?”

“Really, really lucky,” Flug repeated, furrowing his brow and tapping his chin. “You can be summoned from anywhere in the world so the chances—”

“Yes, well,” Black Hat blustered, “it’s a large town, lots of things happen in it, shut up. Now, will you hurry up? I’m eager to meet this group of devilish acolytes. Who knows. We may gain allies. Or sacrificial rubes.”

“The best kind,” Dementia said.

Black Hat stood. His movements poised and measured, he strode to the door.

“We can’t go out like this,” Flug pleaded, “we’ll be caught. We need disguises!”

“Nonsense,” Black Hat responded. “It’s Halloween! As long as we don’t press our faces to passersby we’ll pass for revellers. Besides, the brisk air will do my scales some good. Come along, chop-chop.”

“B—”

“That was a threat, Flug. I’m threatening you.”

Exhausted, Flug did as he was told, the three of them slinking out of the fire exit of the dilapidated hotel and walking to the car park. Sure enough, the pavement was dotted with characters, some of them very drunk.

“Nice costumes,” yelled a plastered woman dressed as an orange crayon, stumbling down the street.

“Thank you,” Black Hat yelled back, unlocking the van. Dementia scampered in and Flug followed, desperate not to be looked at. “I worked hard on it.”

“It suits you! Great impression, too, it’s really hard to do that with your throat!”

“Isn’t it just! I must say, you’re the spitting image of a child’s drawing implement.”

“Aw,” she called back, giving him a drunken thumbs up, “you big flirt!”

“I know,” he said, coy, “I know.”

“Sir,” Flug implored, “will you please stop flirting with strangers when we are on the run!”

“What? Why? Look, she’s eating it up. She’s waving. She’s falling over. She’s bleeding. She’s very committed to the unmoving aspect of the crayon.”

“We should leave.”

“Righto.”

Black Hat climbed in the front and delicately adjusted the mirror. “Are you two alright back there?”

“Actually,” Flug said, “I—”

“I don’t know why I’m asking. I don’t care.”

Black Hat started abruptly, gently jolting Dementia and pummelling Flug. “We need to invest in extra seats,” he hollered, desperate to avoid another incident.

“You,” Dementia teased, swaying lightly with the momentum of the vehicle like wheat in the breeze, “need better balance.”

Flug had never had the opportunity to gauge Black Hat’s driving abilities, not without the bleary tinge of panic muddling his judgement, but he found that it was somehow scarier than Dementia’s. Not because it was worse, not necessarily, but because every terrifying manoeuvre wasn’t the result of base impulses and whims but a cold and considered pondering that ended in a flick of the wheel. Dementia would spin the van wildly because it seemed like a good idea. Black Hat would spin it wildly because he _knew_ it was a good idea. And although the difference was slight it was enough to make Flug queasy. Black Hat muttered directions to himself, ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and ‘absolutely not’, utilizing some sense Flug didn’t have the means to comprehend.

“Here,” Black Hat said.

Flug heard a blaring truck horn.

“Wait, no,” Black Hat said, hurtling the van with uncomfortable ease, “this way!”

“You can’t cut across an intersection!” Flug shrieked, spying the front window.

“Lighten up, Flug,” Black Hat chuckled. “You’ve all got to die someday.”

“This isn’t reassuring!”

“Why would I want to reassure you? Oh, this way!”

Flug heard more truck horns. He screamed, clutching his head. “What is happening out there!”

“Never you mind.”

“I can’t take this anymore! I can’t take this stress! This isn’t normal! This isn’t right! I smell burning!”

“That would be the fire. I understand driving is stressful,” Black Hat nodded, deftly avoiding a pile-up he caused with precise and enviable control of the battered van, “but you have to get over it. It’s not so bad. Dementia, tell him.”

“Haha,” she clapped, perfectly upright. “Whee! Death!”

“That’s the spirit. I think most of the truckers are dead so I can slow down.”

“What?” Flug babbled.

“... Don’t worry about it. We’re not far,” he hissed, smiling. “I sense it. I can’t tent my fingers without horrible injury but rest assured, I’m thinking about it.”

“You could totally get away with it for a second,” Dementia said.

“Really?”

“Maybe even two.”

“Well then—!”

“Please concentrate on the road,” Flug wept.

“Right, of course,” he sighed as if this was an imposition. The sounds of screaming and truck horns faded away as the roads grew quieter, vanishing completely as they turned into a small cul-de-sac.

“This place is nice,” Dementia said. “Built-up, too, this isn’t some cult-shack in the middle of nowhere where you get really drunk and see who can eat the most moss without puking and even though you win, deep down you know you’ve lost.”

“Twee suburbia,” Black Hat commented, ignoring her. “The perfect place for a summoning. Close the curtains, smile at the neighbours and nobody will suspect a thing. An admirable setting for catastrophic evil. That house there, with the dahlias. We’re here.”

“Think they’ll have snacks?”

“If they don’t I’ll be furious,” Black Hat said, clicking the door shut. Dementia peeled Flug from the floor, propped him upright and motioned for him to follow. Black Hat jogged up the stone steps and rang the doorbell, waiting politely.

A girl no older than eleven, slathered in grey paint and adjusting a homemade top hat, answered the door. The smile, from some lingering conversation, dropped from her face. “Wh— I-I— wh—”

“Good taste,” Black Hat said, nodding at her hat. “Are your parents home?”

“Th— This— This is— This i-is—”

“I appreciate this is probably a shock but I’m not going to kill you. There’s no need for the stuttering.”

“... R-Really?”

“Yes. Well, I might if you don’t pull yourself together. Now I’ll say it again; are your parents home?”

“This isn’t my house,” she blurted out. “I’m just here for the slumber party. Were you… Invited?”

“... In a sense,” Black Hat said, peering inside the house, the hallway flush with sentimental pictures and knick-knacks. He spied a heap of small coats piled on a single peg on the coat rack, as well as shoes haphazardly scattered underneath.

“Are you the real Black Hat?”

“I am,” he said, playing up the rasp in his voice.

“Oh boy. Oh no. Oh no, my dad told me this would happen if I wore this costume, or stayed out past curfew or didn’t do my homework or— I don’t want to be rude, but is it OK if I go hide in the living room for a while? I think I’m gonna cry.”

“Don’t let me stop you. Could you inform the host that I’ve arrived? I believe I’m expected.”

“Yeah. Yeah, OK. I guess this is just the way my week is going. Sure. Whatever.”

She plodded off sullenly, disappearing around the corner. Flug gathered the group in a conspiratorial huddle. “Black Hat,” he said diplomatically, “are you sure this is the right house? We can leave right now and never come back. I’ll be smug about how right I am and then I’ll never speak of it again.”

“Positive,” Black Hat said, doubt crossing his features. “Absolutely positive. I’ve never been wrong before.”

“Maybe your illness is throwing your evil sonar out of whack,” Dementia added, tapping her chin.

“No. No, I’m convinced. And there’s no need to huddle. This isn’t a grand scheme.”

“I like huddling with you guys,” Dementia said.

“This is nice,” Flug added. “This feels like bonding.”

Black Hat gently pushed them back. He shushed them, eavesdropping when he heard the murmur of conversation from inside the house. Another child spoke. “Oh, hey. Who was at the door? Was it the pizza guy?”

“Michelle?”

“Yeah, Sonia?”

“Can you… Come to the door? You have a guest.”

“Huh? Did you invite someone?”

Michelle, the girl dressed as a pirate, walked into the hallway. She reeled, took off her eyepatch as if she was somehow mistaken, threw her arms up and skittered back into the kitchen. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“God isn’t the one knocking at your door, child,” Black Hat proclaimed to the house, “though I’m just as vengeful. Come and greet me! Offer to take my coat, my hat; manners, children, manners!”

Flug squinted, angling his ear to the kitchen and listening intently.

“Is that the real one,” Michelle babbled, in shock. “You’re sure it’s not some costume? What’s he doing out here? Isn’t the real one out eating babies or killing beluga whales or something? I don’t want to be in some prank video.”

“Hello,” Black Hat repeated in his peculiar voice, eager to hide the fact that his plans consisted of being miserable in bed and intermittently sobbing. The girls yelped, all doubt vanishing.

“What do we do, Sonia?”

“I dunno,” Sonia exclaimed, “I thought you’d know!”

“Me? I don’t know what to do with this guy! Why is he here?”

“I didn’t ask, I got too scared.”

“... Do you think if we lock the door, he’ll, like… Leave?”

“I won’t,” Black Hat shouted from the door, thoroughly entertained. “I have business here and I’m not leaving until I figure out what is going on. I’m coming inside. Flug, Dementia, with me.”

“You can’t come in here,” Sonia babbled, “we didn’t invite you inside. You’ll explode, or melt, or something!”

“You’re thinking of vampires,” Black Hat said, crossing the threshold. With a squelch, like punching meat, he removed his top hat and left it on a hanger, leaving his bowler to cover his head. The hissing from the kitchen increased in volume.

“I know how to get rid of him,” Sonia said. “I saw it on TV.”

“No,” Michelle begged. “No, Sonia, don’t, you’ll be killed!”

Flug heard the creak of an old wooden cupboard.

“I won’t. I think this will work. I can do this.”

_“Sonia!”_

With dazzling speed Sonia appeared, running, tripping in fear, righting herself, tripping again and finally advancing. She opened her palm and tossed. A fistful of salt smacked impotently against Black Hat’s chest, dusting his shirt and tinkling against the hard floor. “Out, foul beast! Out of this plane!”

Black Hat narrowed his eyes, adjusting his waistcoat and dusting the salt from his shirt. “Don’t do that again,” he said firmly.

“Yes, sir,” she responded, cowed.

“Get out of my sight.”

Sonia was retreating to the living room, hat in hand and facing the group. “Will do, sir, sorry sir, really sorry, won’t happen again, bye, bye sir, sorry, bye, big fan, bye.”

Michelle finally reemerged, limply brandishing her plastic hook as a weapon. “Hey,” she said weakly, “we can't wear our shoes ins—”

Black Hat looked at her.

“— You know what, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it, it’s cool.”

“Look,” Flug said, putting on his best friendly tone and holding his hands up. “You didn’t expect to see us today. That’s understandable. We’re just as confused. But we can be reasonable. We’re not as bad as you think we are.”

“We are,” Dementia said. “We’re worse. We’re way worse. What are you talking about?”

Flug threw Dementia a murderous glance. He quelled his temper. “Give us what we need,” he said diplomatically, “and we’ll leave.”

Michelle looked them up and down, lowering her shitty plastic hook. “... What do you need?”

“Information,” Flug responded. “That’s it. We don’t want money and we don’t want to hurt you. We just want to know what’s going on.”

“I want money,” Black Hat hissed to him.

“I want to beat up some kids,” Dementia hissed, just as angry.

“Can you two reign yourselves in for five minutes?” Flug scowled. “Please? Five minutes?”

Michelle walked forward, her eyes narrowed but her guard lowering. “Information about… What?”

Black Hat put his hand on his heart, ever the showman. He threw in a little bow. “I was summoned here,” he said, “in a ritual.”

“Summoned?” Michelle gawked, “how—?”

She stopped, her eyes wide. Something clicked into place.

“... I am so sorry,” she said, “could you give me a second?”

“By all means,” Black Hat responded.

“Thanks. Um, there are some seats here. You can have some candy while you wait.”

Black Hat gracefully sat down, crossing his legs and resting his cheek on his hand. He spied the large bowl to his left. Dementia and Flug positioned themselves on the long leather stool opposite. “I think I shall,” Black Hat said, wiggling his fingers.

Michelle forced a smile and positioned herself at the bottom of the stairs. _“VANESSA,”_ she hollered. _“COME DOWN HERE!”_

Silence.

_“VANESSA!”_

“Another girl?” Flug enquired, too tall for his seat.

“Yeah. She’s been gone for forty minutes.”

“You didn’t think that was strange?”

“She said she had IBS!”

“Huh. Where are your parents, anyway?”

“Halloween party.”

She gathered her breath again. Flug braced himself. _“VANESSA, COME DOWN! YOU DUMB IDIOT, GET DOWN HERE!”_

A voice, finally, responded in a holler that was just as unpleasant. _“DON’T CALL ME THAT, MICHELLE!”_

_“WELL, YOU ARE! DID YOU SUMMON BLACK HAT?”_

A long, long silence.

_“... MAYBE.”_

_“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, MAYBE? UGH, YOU ALWAYS MAKE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU! THIS IS WHY NOBODY INVITES YOU ANYWHERE, VANESSA. YOU TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH YOUR MOM MAKES, OR YOU LIE ABOUT IBS, OR YOU SUMMON A SNAKE-MAN. SONIA IS CRYING.”_

_“SONIA ALWAYS CRIES.”_

_“DON’T PUT THIS ON HER!”_

The group sat there in quiet, awkward dignity, making uncomfortable eye contact with one another through cheekfuls of cheap sweets.

 _“I DIDN’T LIE ABOUT HAVING IBS,”_ Vanessa bellowed. _“THAT’S REAL. THAT’S REAL AND THAT’S A HURTFUL THING TO SAY.”_

_“S—”_

_“MY BOWELS AREN’T A JOKE, MICHELLE.”_

_“— SUMMONING SATAN IN MY FRIGGING HOUSE IS HURTFUL, VANESSA!”_

Black Hat cleared his throat to prompt her to hurry up, extremely unwilling to hear about this child’s bowels.

 _“OH MY GOD,”_ Vanessa squealed, disbelieving, _“IS HE ACTUALLY HERE?”_

_“NO, I JUST THOUGHT I’D MENTION IT— OF COURSE HE’S HERE, VANESSA, GET DOWN HERE AND DEAL WITH THIS! HURRY UP, YOU’RE RUINING MY SLUMBER PARTY. MY PARENTS ARE GOING TO BE SO MAD AT YOU, I SWEAR.”_

_“TELL HIM I CAN’T COME DOWN RIGHT NOW, I’M PEEING.”_

“She can’t come down right now. She’s peeing.”

“I gathered,” Black Hat responded, distantly amused. He tossed a piece of black liquorice into his mouth. Dementia rooted through the bowl and stuffed caramels into her cheeks.

“Oh, ew, are you eating the liquorice?”

“It’s the only one I like,” Black Hat admitted. “I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”

“But liquorice? Geeze, you really are evil.”

“I’m glad you noticed. Shouldn’t you be screaming in fear? Begging for your parents?”

“I kinda figured if you were gonna eat me you’d have already done it.”

“An astute observation.”

“You can have the bag if you want. Nobody else likes them.”

Black Hat raised a brow, delighted and bemused all at once. “Would you consider this an offering, child?”

“... I guess?”

Flug and Dementia braced themselves as Black Hat threw his head back and unhinged his jaw. **“THE PACT IS MADE.”**

“Oh Jesus,” Michelle yelped, clutching her ears. “Ow! Ow, ow! How did you do that with your voice?”

“I did get a bit into that,” he admitted.

“You aren’t… Taking my soul or anything, right? I’m not signing any contracts?”

“No, no. But good on you for being wary. I certainly wouldn’t trust me.”

Michelle motioned to the kitchen, torn between asking them to leave and attempting to appease these horrible people. “D’you want something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” Black Hat said.

“Um, what about you? The girl. What’s your name again?”

“Dementia,” she shrugged. “It’s hard to remember. Are you the underage drinking kind of kids?”

“No.”

“Then I’m good. Flug?”

“Actually,” Flug said, “if you have any orange j—”

Michelle was already gone.

“Oh…”

Black Hat took in his surroundings. He noted the dirty trowel by the door and the flower seeds, the wear on the floor tiles, the warm air of the place, the fact that Michelle could no longer hear them if they kept their voices low. He leaned forward. “What’s the plan? Murder?”

“We are not,” Flug hissed, “not ruining some girl’s slumber party. For God’s sakes, we’re better than that!”

“Are we?”

“Yes,” Flug insisted. “Yes, we are. Besides, it’s too easy!”

“This is a little beneath me,” Black Hat admitted. “Fine, if it will stop your whining, I won’t kill them. Truth be told I’m feeling pretty festive and I’m having fun watching them bicker. Is that petty? I feel like that’s petty.”

“So what do we do?” Dementia slurred through caramels. “Mess up the place? Paint some warnings in Flug’s blood?”

“First order of business is to figure out how that pissing zygote upstairs summoned me. We can get creative from there.”

“What’s this about my blood?” Flug asked.

“Don’t be greedy.”

Flug moved to bicker but his attention was drawn to a large, flickering shadow on the wall at the top of the stairwell, slinking, shimmering and malevolent. It shrank in size and grew in blackness until, slowly, she appeared at the bannister. She was four and a half feet tall and shuffling sideways down the stairs, gripping her costume at the knees. She took care not to trip on her cult robes, made from black bed sheets with a golden curtain tassel as a sash. Black Hat’s shoulders shook, but he said nothing. Flug cooed, clutching his hands.

“Please don’t laugh,” Vanessa said, diligently shuffling. “My mom spent a lot of time on this.”

The three of them erupted in glee, Dementia delighted and Black Hat cackling. Flug could barely contain himself, finding it too cute to bear. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she threw her arms up and her head back, putting on her best deep voice. “O, Dark and Treacherous Master, O, Plague of Plagues, O—”

“She’s doing the speech!” Black Hat wheezed, turning to Flug and Dementia in disbelief. “She’s doing the speech!”

“— O, Portent of Doom, I beseech— I’m really sorry, but do they have to be here?”

“Hello,” Flug said, waving awkwardly.

“Yo,” Dementia dribbled, chewing with her mouth open

“Yes,” Black Hat said.

“Why?” Vanessa asked, tired.

“They just do.”

“Are they interns?”

“I don’t pay them. I suppose they are. I beat them less.”

Vanessa sighed. She fixed her robes. “O, Portent of Doom, I beset—!”

“‘Beseech’.”

“That’s what I said.”

“It wasn’t. I wrote the speech and that wasn’t it.”

“— I besmirch thee, lend unto—”

“Child, look, if you do the whole thing we’ll be here for hours and I’m a busy man. Don’t worry about the speech. Consider me appeased, consider my dark wrath avoided— you’re in the clear.”

She sounded crestfallen. “I memorised the whole thing…”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure you did. How did you do this?”

“Do what?”

Black Hat laughed, caught somewhere between impressed and appalled. “Summon me here!”

“Well, I looked it up online and I…”

She shrugged.

“I just… Did it?”

Black Hat looked her up and down. He nodded in recognition. Flug looked on, baffled at Black Hat’s sincere display of respect and the child’s naivety in missing it. “You’re rotten to the core. No hope for you. That’s the only explanation.”

“You don’t have to be like that.”

“Read between the lines, child; I’m commending you. What is it you want?”

“What I was thinking was, like, you could murder everyone here!” Her face fell as she realised what she had said. “Not me. Everyone but me.”

“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood,” Black Hat said, tutting. “If you have to summon forces beyond mortal ken can you at _least_ think about what you say after? Why do you want these girls dead? Enough to summon me. Me!”

“I just do, I guess.”

“There has to be another reason,” he insisted. “Have you been betrayed? Bad-mouthed on one of those socialized-medias?”

“Nothing like that,” she shrugged. “I just… I wanted to. It seemed cool.”

“Why, I think you already have it in you to brutally terrorise these innocent children! You don’t need to summon an ancient, godless creature of the night,” he said, pointing to his chest, “the real evil comes from within!”

“Yeah… Yeah! Yeah, you’re right!”

“As I always am. Quickly! Commit an act of unfathomable hate! Spread my dark will!”

Vanessa swept a small vase off the table. It bounced harmlessly on the rug. Flug awkwardly stood on it until it shattered at which point Vanessa let out a primal holler of dark rage. Michelle returned with the bag of liquorice, threw Vanessa a glare that could melt stone and retreated to the living room to comfort her friend.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You can try,” Black Hat said.

“Is Halloween like Evil Christmas for you guys?”

“Oh, not you as… Sort of,” he muttered.

“That’s so cool. I was kind of worried you weren’t gonna show up,” Vanessa admitted. “When I did the ritual I thought maybe you would crawl out of the mirror or appear in a shower of blood and hair… Is that just a horror movie thing? I didn’t think you would… Ring the doorbell, I guess? Do bad guys do that? Are villains allowed to ring doorbells?”

“I do as I please,” Black Hat said smoothly, covering for his illness. “Power allows me the luxury of whimsy.”

“Huh?”

“I can be fickle.”

“Whuh?”

“I am allowed to be impulsive. I’m so ancient and terrible that convention ceases to apply. I do what I like when I feel like it.”

“Wha?”

“The education system has failed you, child,” Black Hat tutted.

“Yeah, well,” she whined, digging her heels in, “I don’t need it. I want to be a super-villain. The villains on TV buy stuff from you and they’re all idiots so I’ll have a huge advantage. Oh! Oh my God, can I be that? Can that be one of my three wishes?”

“I don’t grant wishes, I strike up deals! And you can’t be a super-villain,” Black Hat declared. “There’s only one and that one happens to be me. You can be a hooligan, or a crook, definitely a reprobate. If you get started now you can be a full-fledged scallywag by the time you’re nineteen. But you can’t be a super-villain.”

“What about a snake, can I be that?”

“No! Get your own thing,” Black Hat hissed, making a point to flick his forked tongue. “Be a vole or something. Be a lesser-known evil animal. You can be a giraffe. And don’t be so flippant about your education, it’s all you’ll have. Unless you have a superpower?”

“No,” she admitted. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Do you have the means to acquire some? You could go the route of this… Muscular idiot.”

Dementia flexed, smugly showing off her arms. Vanessa oohed. “I tried licking a plug socket once to see if that would give me electricity powers but it totally didn’t, it just made my mom really mad. What was it like?”

“Horrible!” Dementia smiled, her eyes going a little too wide. “The worst pain you could ever imagine! Being really good at shoplifting is fine if you don’t mind being suspended in an embryonic limbo of agony for days and days!”

Everyone was silent. Black Hat cleared his throat.

“What Dementia meant to say,” Black Hat said, his voice smooth as butter, “was that it was a fulfilling experience that shaped her for the better. Isn’t that right, valued employee?”

“Oh yeah,” Dementia enthused, “it was a fulfilling experience that shaped me for the better. Sorry. I get words mixed up sometimes. Thanks, Bonbon!”

“Don’t mention it, Dementia.”

“No, really—”

_“Don’t mention it. Dementia.”_

Flug subtly shook his head to dissuade the child. He mouthed ‘no’ despite the bag.

“Um,” Vanessa said, “I don’t think I want superpowers.”

“Well, there’s no shame in that. In fact,” Black Hat smiled, tenting his fingers, “there are other ways to cause carnage.”

Black Hat reached into his coat and produced a business card. He made it twirl and hop between his fingers before handing it over. Flug politely applauded.

“If your family are willing to invest a few million then I’m _sure_ I can pull a few strings vis-à-vis your career prospects...”

“We don’t have that kind of money,” Vanessa baulked.

“... A few hundred thousand?”

“Don’t have that, either.”

“... Couple of grand?”

“... On me? Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Nope.”

Black Hat tapped his chin. He sighed, giving up on his patter. “... Well, what have you got on you?”

Vanessa rooted through the pockets of her cult robe, picking out bits of paper. “Uh, lemme see...”

“Really?” Flug whispered. "Really?"

“Stop complaining. I’m not murdering her, am I?”

She pulled out a handful of scrunched up bills. “Eight dollars and two packs of gum.”

“... What kind?”

“Watermelon.”

“That’ll do.”

He took them from her and slid them into his coat. “Am I a villain now?” She beamed.

“Hm? Oh, yes, sure. Whatever.”

“You could try getting a PhD,” Flug offered, puffing out his chest, “you don’t have to be a reptile-person if you’re smart enough.”

Dementia and Black Hat muttered insults at him. He ploughed on, boasting with his arms behind his back.

”Academia is always there for you! Ethics is optional, science is forever! Well, the ‘mad’ sciences, anyway. Bioengineering, robotics, chemistry—”

“Geology?” Vanessa asked. “My uncle is a geologist.”

“... An evil geologist?”

“No, just petrology. I mean, I guess that’s evil if you’re a rock or something.”

“She licked a plug socket to gain electricity powers,” Black Hat whispered, “is she really PhD material?”

Flug looked grim. “May I be frank, sir?”

“You may.”

“Yes.”

“Good grief...”

“I dunno,” Vanessa said. “Becoming a mad scientist seems like a lot of hard work.”

“It’s not work if you love it.”

“Really?”

“... No,” Flug admitted, a broken shell of a man. “No, it’s still work. It’s so, so much work.”

“Oh.”

“The stress shortened my life by ten years.”

“At least it was worth it to work with Lord Black Hat,” she enthused, “right?”

Black Hat turned to Flug and gave him a smug little look, resting his chin on his hand. “Yup,” Flug choked, “It really is! Dream job! It’s exactly what I wanted!”

“Are you crying?”

“Tears of joy!”

“Well,” Black Hat said, shoving Flug out of the way, “now that you’ve psychologically devastated my employees— wonderful job, by the way— I’m sure there must be something horrible we can—”

Black Hat lit up. He clicked his fingers as an idea came to him. “Oh,” he said to himself, “oh, that could be fun. One of you, start the... Vehicle. The moment I climb in, speed away. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Flug said.

“I won’t be long. I have business to discuss.”

Flug took it upon himself to leave, shaking his head. Dementia followed quickly behind, Black Hat shooing her from the door.

“Fine, I’m going! Ugh!”

She made her way down the steps, irritated. She nodded at the van. “Who’s driving?”

“Me,” Flug said firmly.

“But I wanna drive.”

“We could rock-paper-scissors for it.”

“Good idea,” she said. “Are we going on three, or counting to three then going?”

“On four.”

“Right, right, cool. Rock, paper, scissors, g—”

In the time it took Dementia to throw out rock Flug climbed in the front seat and shut the door. Dementia cursed and climbed in the back. She sat on the waterbed. “What d’you think he’s talking about in there?” Dementia asked, tapping out a tune on the metal of the van.

“I’m not sure,” Flug admitted. “He never let me listen in on meetings. ‘You’re as useful as a houseplant and half as smart, don’t even bother,’ he said. ‘Flug, do this, Flug, do that, Flug, don’t sit in my chair when I leave for the bathroom, it’s creepy’.”

“He gave you an answer when you asked?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, he laughed until he blacked-out when I tried. He’s so precious about the company. Think he’d dumb down the business-talk for a kid?”

“I don’t think so,” Flug said. “It would hurt his pride.”

Flug’s vision was drawn to two children fleeing out of the house. Michelle, hobbling with her stick-on peg leg, tore the plastic away and lobbed it into a shrub as Sonia stumbled tearfully behind her. Twenty seconds later, by Flug’s count, Vanessa followed, holding her robes and following as best she could.

“Huh,” Flug said, confused. “... Okay.”

“That the kids?”

“Yeah. That was weird.”

“Maybe he said some forbidden, evil-y stuff.” Dementia shrugged. “Maybe we couldn’t listen in because we’d explode into meat jelly. Maybe he’s cooked up some amazing, elaborate scheme we can’t imagine.”

“Maybe,” Flug conceded.

“Even the most amazing strategists have to account for the seventy or eighty years they’re alive, right? But living for _thousands_ of years? Planning for that long? Would it even be worth thinking about? No way we can understand the subtleties of that kind of mindset. Way too intricate.”

Flug mused on this. He was broken from his thoughts by Black Hat hurtling himself into the back of the van arse-over-tit. “THE HOUSE IS ABLAZE,” he panted, “FLEE!”

Flug adjusted the wing mirror. He fiddled with the radio.

“Are you deaf, I said flee!”

“You two have thrown me around in this van for long enough,” Flug snapped. “I’m sick of it! I’m covered in bruises! Do you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to thoroughly check that everything is in order. And we’re going to leave calmly, safely and, if I have to, slowly!”

Dementia grabbed his seat and shook it until it rattled. Flug didn’t budge, crossing his arms and closing his eyes.

“Are you willing to risk jail for this?” Black Hat spat, leaning into the gap by Flug’s seat. “Are you willing to ruin your life for the sake of being right?”

Flug gave him a self-satisfied look, keeping his arms crossed. This was answer enough.

“He’s not right in the head,” Black Hat despaired. “Dementia, pull him out.”

Flug fastened his seatbelt and, preempting her, went limp in his seat.

“I can’t,” she hollered, her arms uselessly flopping around his flaccid body from behind, “it’s like trying to grab a spaghetti noodle! He’s got no bones!”

“Flug,” Black Hat agonized through gritted teeth, “I am sorry! Shall I tapdance an apology in morse code or is that sufficient enough for you, my liege?”

“If you’re offering…”

An otherworldly screech exploded from Black Hat’s throat. “FUCKING DRIVE, FLUG!”

Flug finally drove away, much to the relief of Black Hat and Dementia. Neighbours poured into the streets upon smelling the smoke and hearing the crackle of the glass.

Vanessa stood on the corner of the street and waved at them as they left. Flug, bemused, waved back.

 

* * *

 

A quiet home in twee suburbia. A warm home. A very warm home.

“Jesus,” Flug said, “that’s a big fire.”

“Things may have got out of hand,” Black Hat admitted. “Still. It was nice to get out for a bit.”

‘LORD BLACK HAT SIEGES HOME, BAMBOOZLES YOUTHS’ scrolled across the ticker. They watched the television, enthralled, cocooned in the comfort of their damp little hotel room. Flug absently scratched 5.0.5’s fur with his foot, relaxing on the bed as Black Hat chewed liquorice with his mouth open. The sharply dressed woman onscreen muttered, smoking a cigarette and pacing.

“Hate this Goddamn town…” she sighed. “‘Move here’, Richard said, ‘it’s so cheap, you can finally get that loft’, of course it’s cheap, Richard, it’s gotta be cheap when Beelzebub shows up whenever he damn well pleases and— oh, hell, we’re on.”

She flicked the cigarette away, pasting on a worried smile and bringing the microphone to the man next to her. “What do you make of this, officer?”

The gruff man, more bicep than human, shook his head. “You witness a lot of unimaginable things on the force but this is damn near the worst bamboozling I’ve ever seen. We found strange sigils carved into the upstairs mirror with a nail file and, from what we’ve established, Lord Black Hat possessed one of these children from afar before appearing here. For what reason, I can’t say. Can’t begin to imagine what these kids have gone through.”

“Would it be fair to say that safety is an illusion we propagate to anchor us to sanity and that at every moment dark and seething forces conspire to consume our very beings from the inside out?”

“Maybe not those exact words, but yes. You should be afraid, all the time, regarding everything.”

“I see. Thank you. I hope you catch that awful creature.”

“You and me both.”

“What about those truckers?”

“Aw, hell! That was him?”

“Possessed?” Dementia asked. “Why do they think that? You didn’t do that, right?”

“I didn’t,” Black Hat said, kicking off his shoes and getting comfortable. “But I told the child to say that.”

“Ooh,” Dementia giggled, “you’re going somewhere with this.”

Black Hat gasped, pressing his hand to his forehead. “Dementia, you wound me! When have I ever indulged in theatrics?”

A woman on the television, sobbing over the loss of her home and dressed as a lobster, clutched a picture in her claws. “This part of town was voted Least Likely To Host Unfathomable Evil at the biannual gardener’s awards,” she wept. “I don’t know what happened. I thought we were safe. What will the neighbours say? How will my reputation recover? What about my child…?”

“I’m still alive, mom,” Michelle said, by her side.

“Oh! Oh, I assumed you were dead. Hello, honey. How was the slumber party?”

“Bad. We ran out of Pepsi and the devil was there. All he did was stand in the doorway and argue with Vanessa. It was kind of embarrassing. Isn’t he a really, really old man, how come he’s arguing with some k—?”

“I considered a bag of black liquorice a sufficient enough offering to curry my dark favour,” Black Hat interrupted, turning down the television. “I told the two nice girls that I was going to set the house alight with them in it. Then I ‘accidentally’ left the front door open so they could escape. When they left the hellion and I struck up a deal and after that I let her set the house on fire. We shared a quick cackle, shook hands and that was that.”

Flug raised a brow. “A deal? How business savvy can a tween be?”

“Not very,” Black Hat admitted. “But you forget the point of the organization. If you consider the lifespan of the average villain this company’s continued success requires growing our client base years down the line. This works in our favour in a few ways. One,” he said. “This strengthens my reputation. This is going to scare the living daylights out of people. ‘Lord Black Hat? Showing up in a little suburb and possessing an innocent child? On Halloween? What if he comes after me!’ Two,” he continued. “I’ve set that child down a terrible path. She’s got a taste for arson. Children that age love the instant rush of fire. Three,” he said, “they think I set that fire, not her. She was ‘possessed’, she’s just as much a victim as the other children in their eyes.”

“You took the heat,” Flug snickered.

“I’ll take your life if you ever say that to me again,” he grumbled. “I predict a slap on the wrist. All she has to do is keep up the ‘I didn’t mean to summon him’ act and she’s set. She would be a fool to break character.”

“You didn’t have to humour the kids.”

“No,” Black Hat admitted, coy, “I didn’t. But I couldn’t snuff out a repugnant spirit, could I? I’m crooked, not maladjusted; I can play nice now and then.”

“Could have fooled me…”

Dementia shook her head. “What if the police try and summon you? What if she tells them how to do it, or she’s forced to do it herself? This time it could really be a trap.”

“Then it’s simple. The deal is off.”

“What deal?”

“The scholarship,” he said simply. “By the time she’s ready for college, I’m confident we’ll have ironed out this mess. Think about it. If she succeeds she makes me money by buying from the company and spreading my influence, if she fails the loss is pennies to a man of my class. It’s a shrewd investment.”

Flug choked, lapsing into a coughing fit. His words came out in wet wheezes, mangled by distressed hiccups.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” Black Hat said. “You’ve inspired the youth. You’ve actually done something worthy of merit. Don’t envy a child just because you weren’t proactive enough to earn a sponsor, it’s embarrassing.”

“Proactive? Proactive? I ploughed my plane into your home,” Flug exclaimed. “I ruined my body because I prayed you would mentor me!”

“You should have crashed it earlier.”

“I think we’ve all learned an important lesson in mental health,” Dementia mused as Flug gibbered about the fiscal hell that was his PhD and contemplated beating a child to death. “If you’re feeling down, or you’re sick, or if things just aren’t working out, then the best thing you can do is get your friends together, push your way into a defenceless child’s home and torch the whole thing. Things will pick up.”

“Uh,” Flug stuttered. “Hm. That’s— I don’t know if, um—”

Black Hat nodded sagely. “Thank you, Dementia. That was very profound. You’ve given me a lot to think on.”

“I’m not just a pretty face.”

Black Hat looked at her wryly. “No. You certainly aren’t.”

“Aw, shucks,” she said, missing the jibe. “Merry Evil Christmas.”

“Ugh, it’s n—”

Black Hat trailed off. The urge to say something unpleasant and caustic lingered but, in his element and with the good mood to back it, he found it in himself to leave well enough alone. Just this once he could enjoy the moment without the fear of warm company and what it meant for him. Just this once he could let it happen. Just this once he could be honest.

“... Dementia? Flug?”

They looked at him, awaiting some cutting taunt.

“Merry Evil Christmas,” he said, meaning it. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the tone isn’t quite fitting with a halloween fic, right? but hey, it’s evil christmas!
> 
> (look forward to the day i restore tonal balance with my christmas-christmas fic; Salò 2: Jingle All The Way)


End file.
